Kindred Spirits
by ESpencer
Summary: Following his death in Endgame, Noatak awakes in the spirit world to find guidance from a very unlikely source...Rated T for later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

"_The two of us together again. There's nothing we can't do."_

"_Yes, Noatak." _

"_Noatak. I had almost forgotten the sound of my own name…"_

"_It will be just like the good old days." _

There was a flash of light, and for just a moment he could feel the course of electricity throughout his whole body. But there was no pain. Only the thrill of too much power confined by too insufficient a conductor. Then there was silence.

Noatak opened his eyes to the vast emptiness of the Northern wilderness. It might have been the very same tundra he had fled to the night he left his family, had it not felt so profoundly different from any place he had experienced in the human world. And he knew, in some unexplainable way, that he no longer inhabited the human world. This was a world beyond all that; like being inside the dream world when you know you are asleep. In the same way, Noatak knew that he was dead and that he had transitioned into the spirit world.

What he did not know was what he was supposed to do next. Unlike the tundra he had escaped to in his childhood, this landscape felt as though it stretched into forever without a chance of civilization in any direction. Cruel glaciers jutted up from the hard-packed snow, the only markers of distance in this place that rivaled the sky in its vastness. Noatak could feel the weight of so much empty space pressing down on him. The falling snow seemed to gather on his slumped shoulders, pressing him down further and further into the unyielding earth. He tried to create a shield between himself and the deluge before realizing that his bending was useless here. Alone and without the one ability that had been such a key part of him, he had no choice but to walk.

He walked without complaint, without respite. If he could make it through such hardship at fourteen, he was certain that he could do it again now. After all, this time he did not have to fear for his life. He beat on, each step a resolution, a promise of he knew not what that was carved into the fresh fallen snow. And as he walked he began to see. He saw his mother, smiling contently as she hung furs out to dry. He saw his brother, reaching a hand out to comfort the wolves he had been forced to blood bend. He saw himself as a young man, fierce and proud and prodigious as he could ever hope to be. As he ever dared to be.

And then he was standing before the vast crowds of Republic City, praise and applause pouring over him, lifting him up in the same way that the snow tried to beat him down. He would rid the world of this bending disease. He would see to it that no other child was forced to bear the weight of expectation. He would give this wretched world exactly what it deserved.

But as soon as he had been raised as high as he could go, he was brought crashing down by the sight of his father. His father had one hand on the shoulder of each of his sons, but there was no caring, no warmth in his grasp. This touch was too strong, too demanding to be that of a father towards his children. No, this was a man with a tool in both palms, ready to use them however he desired. A swell of anger rose in Noatak's chest, and he rushed the illusion, intent on hurting this man in any way possible.

But as soon as he got within arm's reach, the vision sprang ahead a few yards, untouchable yet again. No matter how hard he ran, and leapt, and groveled, his father always remained just out of reach, his back always turned.

"Don't bother trying to catch up. It's no use, I promise you." The voice spoke right into his ear, causing Noatak to whip around, looking frantically for its source.

It was not a voice he recognized, high and reedy and female, with just a hint of cruel mockery in it; but he was desperate for any contact with another person. He looked in every direction, clinging to the words as if they were the only thing holding him to the earth. Yet the emptiness that surrounded him did not abate. It opened its mouth wide, threatening to swallow him whole.

"Where are you? Show yourself!" Noatak called into the distance, his voice somewhere between commanding and begging. This might have shamed him at one time, but now his humiliation was forgone in the place of his desire to see something, _anything_, other than ice.

His wish was granted in the form of a slight figure walking towards him from some distance. He could make out only the haziest of silhouettes, and it took him a moment to realize that the figure came forward flanked by an army of mist. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the glare of the snow, but still could only grasp the suggestion of a person. But he could tell that this was a person who approached with a purpose. It was evident in the gate, the length of the stride. It was a walk that bore the supreme confidence of one who had quelled fear to such an indiscernible amount that all other could only stare in awe.

As the figure drew closer, Noatak could see that it was a woman, and a fearsome one at that. She appeared from the mist in pieces. First were pointed, knee-high boots that seemed to float over the ground rather than tread through it. Next was a collared, floor length robe of red so deep it was like a bright scar on the pale landscape. Then a pointed, three pronged crown that held up the top half of her hair in an immaculate bun. Last were her eyes. They were sharp and feverish as beaten gold and could cut as deep. They were beautiful in the most frightening way possible; beautiful in the way that Noatak had always felt when a creature bent under his blood bending grip.

She stopped just a few feet from him, her rosy mouth puckering ever so slightly as she regarded him. Noatak felt himself stand up straighter automatically. He could sense that this woman, with her predatory gaze, would not take well to any show of weakness. He too had once been capable of the powerful demeanor she possessed, and he was sure that he could again. He met her gaze full on, challenging her in a way that seemed to delight and disgust her, until her face broke into a self-satisfied grin.

"So, it's you," she said with a sigh. "I thought it might finally be ZuZu, but I suppose you'll do as a distraction for now."

She began circling him, a raptor inspecting its prey. Noatak refused to bend under her scrutiny, his back remaining ramrod straight. "Who are you?" he demanded. "How do you know me?"

She was in front of him once more, too quickly to have moved at human speed. And now she was uncomfortably close; as though in failing to disarm him from a distance, she now sought to do so by invading his space. Heat emanated from her every pore, making beads of sweat form under his layers of clothing. He thought that if she were to touch him, she might leave burn marks, but he did his best to hide this thought from his face. She seemed to sense it anyway.

"I've been watching you for some time. We're quite alike, you and I. Though I suppose we have our fathers to thank for that-"

Before she could finish her thought, Noatak seized her by the neck, his touch bruising if it had been possible for her to bruise. "_Who are you_?" he snarled, giving her a firm shake.

With a condescending chuckle, she slipped his grasp, her body made of smoke rather than flesh. She was behind him once more, speaking right into his ear. Each word was like a match being struck against the walls of a darkened cave. Igniting only for a second, but with each burst of light came a moment of understanding.

"I would have thought even a water tribe peasant would recognize a member of the royal family. Especially one as…_infamous _as I."

Noatak could feel the answer snaking around the edges of his consciousness. It teased and laughed at him, and for a moment her harsh laughter echoed inside his head, taunting him to distraction. And those eyes burned on the inside of his skull, privy to every passing thought.

In the end, it was the eyes that gave him the answer. They had been in his thoughts many times during his last few days in the world of the living, though copied in another's face. General Iroh II. Prince of the Fire Nation. Beholden of the same eyes that had been passed down from generation to generation of princes and princesses. And suddenly he knew who he was speaking to, and it caused him the fill with a dreadful resentment matched only by morbid curiosity.

_What could she possibly want with him_? He wondered. The closest he had come to the royal family was in ordering the attack on General Iroh's forces. But he had never come face to face with any of them. At least, not until now…

"Azula of Caldera, Princess of the Fire Nation…interesting." Noatak voiced his revelation as calmly as possible. He did not know much about the volatile princess, but he had heard stories enough to know to play his cards carefully. Very carefully.

Her eyes had been closed, as though she were gently napping while waiting for his response, but they opened again now, as demeaning as ever. "Very good. It didn't take you half as long as the last Avatar, you'll be pleased to know. Though the impersonations could be quite fun."

"And to what do I owe the _honor_ oh great Princess?" he asked, his voice dripping with a malice to match her own. He may not have known her personally, but her tales of abuse towards the innocent were legendary. Her ruthless pursuit of power had nearly torn the world apart, and Noatak found it easy to despise her for it. It felt good to hate someone besides his father; refreshing really.

But what she said next tore at the fragile edges of his sanity. For a moment, he saw what it was to look over the brink, to feel the pull of madness from below and want to dive in headfirst. He wanted only to run from her, when, just minutes ago, he had craved the presence of another.

"I am your spirit guide," she said, and her smirk cut like a knife.

Noatak knew the legend of the spirit guide. The beings who were said to help the recently deceased cross over from the world of the living to the world of the dead. They were meant to be beings of wisdom and understanding. Noatak could only guess that she had been sent to him as some kind of punishment; as if he had not been tortured enough in life.

She could not be his guide. She, who represented everything he had sought to rid from the world. She who had used her bending as a means of destruction, of corruption, of hate. He could not stand to look at her for another instant, let alone have her usher him into the spirit world. He would rather waste away on this frozen tundra until the end of time.

"_No_," he snarled the ugly word, his rage rendering him incapable of forming an actual sentence. But the princess seemed to understand him nonetheless. The infuriating smirk never faltered from her too perfect face, but her eyes seemed to harden even more. Chips of amber ice as impenetrable as a glacier.

He fell, bereft, under her gaze as though she were somehow lulling him to sleep. He struggled to remain conscious, to not collapse in the powdered snow which now seemed like a soft feather bed. But she was too strong, her effect too intoxicating. He bent to her will, as so many other had done before him.

And just before he went under, she spoke in his ear once more, her voice now a distant whispering of winds. "Try to run from me all you like, Amon. I'll still be waiting no matter how long you try. I'll always be _one…step…ahead._"

Each word a dagger to the heart, Noatak slid, compliant as a lover, into the icy region of sleep.

**A/N: Okay, definitely need some feedback on this one. Is this idea worth pursuing? At this point, I have a lot of ideas, but I'm not sure quite how I want to proceed. Also, comments on Noatak's character would be great, I'm not sure I have his personality pegged. Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!  
~E**


	2. Chapter 2

There was no difference between sleeping and waking in the spirit world. Noatak did not know if his eyes were shut to the world or if the landscape had simply changed around him. Neither would have surprised him.

Gone now was the icy tundra, so bleak and yet familiar. The place he now stood was as foreign to him as anything he had ever encountered. He was lying on the ground, his face pressed against the sand, too exhausted to push himself up. Gentle waves washed up around him, not quite close enough for him to inhale to salty spray of the sea. The sun beat down, unrepentant, caring not for his fur-lined clothes. He thought that maybe if he stayed there long enough, he would be burnt to ash. It was a pleasant thought. To be reduced to a few particles of dust in the wind would surely bring him the peace he had not found in life or in death.

As he lay there, though, he realized that he was not alone. He could hear voices not far off. He tried to move his head to look, but he may as well have been anchored to the sand. His eyes useless, Noatak focused his hearing instead.

"Do not look at your, brother. He has proved embarrassing enough for one day. You will do it again until you have perfected it." At first Noatak thought it might have been his own father speaking. The demanding tone was all too familiar, the words ones that he had heard an endless number of times. But this voice was higher than his father's; more grandiose in its undertones.

It was not his father but it may as well have been. He had never confounded himself that he was the only child held to an unreasonable standard by a parent. There were others, he was certain. This unseen man for sure. As he continued to listen, he felt the need to impress rising in his own chest. The fear crept in as well; fear that if he did not succeed, did not meet those ever building expectations, he would be cast aside. Permanently.

These feelings, which had lain dormant for so long, began to panic him. He could not go back to that, could not be held under his father's thumb ever again. He tried desperately to crawl up the beach where he would be out of earshot, but his body failed. _So weak. A failure. _The voice rang through his mind like an explosion, like the explosion that had landed him here, and if he were able to, he would have screamed into the sand.

"Having fun spying?"

The voice snapped him out of it. He rose away from the beach, entering a new layer of consciousness. Waking from a dream? Perhaps. But Noatak did not feel rested or revived. Especially when he saw that he had returned to the tundra.

He was even more chagrinned to find the Fire Nation princess was still with him, leaning casually against a rock. He held her gaze for barely a second before getting up and walking away. He heard her sigh and could practically feel her rolling her eyes, but he did not look back. He could not stand to be in her presence for another moment, even if it meant wandering this barren land for all eternity.

She reappeared directly in front of him, arms folded across her chest, looking superior in every way. "That's right, Amon. Run away from your problems. I'm sure that will solve _everything_."

"My _name _is Noatak," he growled out, pushing past her once more.

"Is it?" she asked, and for some reason it stopped him.

He wondered how he might answer that question. True, he had forsaken Noatak in favor of Amon, but that had been a necessary sacrifice. He could not risk anyone discovering his origins while he fought to rid the world of its impurity. He had adopted the alias for the greater good.

_Did you_? He asked himself. He knew that his excuses were not quite true. Maybe he had done it to distance himself from the father he despised. Or to give himself a new identity and thus a fresh start at life. _Or maybe_, he thought, _you did it because Noatak died years ago, out there alone in the storm_.

It was something he had always known but had never quite accepted. The boy who had run away into the vast unknown was not the same as the boy who had emerged. The real Noatak had been lost somewhere in between, driven out by the blinding snow and the unattainable need for a father's love. He was no longer truly Noatak, but he was not Amon either. Not in the end, anyway. He was somewhere between the two, and trying to align these two identities was as impossible as finding a way out of this sea of ice.

He had no concept of direction, no understanding, no guide…

But he did. And she was standing just behind him, waiting for him to realize it. He turned to face her and that mocking smirk, sure that he could not bear to accept what she offered him. He did not want her help, but maybe he needed it. Maybe she really was his only chance of finding himself, of finding a balance within that would ease the constant turmoil. He looked into the unrelenting gold of her irises and saw, for just a second, that something plagued her too.

She had been touched by the dark side of life, same as him. And here, without their bending or an ally to their names, they were equal. He bent his head, a signal of submission, and tried not to cringe when her laugh cut through the air.

"What did you mean when you asked if I enjoyed spying?" He asked, bringing her laughter to a crashing halt. It was clear she had meant the question to be rhetorical, but he sensed that there was more to it than that. "That was your dream I stumbled into earlier, wasn't it?" he guessed.

Her face shriveled in anger as though he had squirted lemon juice into her every pore. He had caught on to her game, was a real player now, and she could not stand it. "So what?" she snapped, for once being the first to break eye contact.

"So, you're not the only child to be victimized because of their bending abilities," he said, putting on his best expression of sympathy for the princess. She was before his time of course, but still she was a prime example of the kind of abuse he wanted to strip from the world.

But he found that his compassion was ignored. She was laughing at him, all traces of real emotion once again replaced by her hard exterior. "Ignorant peasant. You think my father would have been any kinder to a _non-bending _child?"

Noatak managed a small smile at her ignorance. Bending was of course the root of all the suffering the world had ever known. It had caused war, death, and destruction. It had caused the undoing of his family. He did not expect her to understand. She who had delighted in her bending abilities, who had loved only the pursuit of power. He would allow her to guide him to his rightful place in the spirit world, yes, but he would not allow himself to develop any kind of alliance with this demon princess. He would get what he needed from her and be done with it; she did not deserve his attempts at pity.

"Tell me what I need to do to cross over," he said, sitting tailor style on the snowy ground.

She seemed pleased that he had finally relented; he could see that she was relishing in this small victory. "The reason you can't cross over is because something is still holding you to the physical world."

"I have no one left there," he answered automatically. He had lost the only thing left to him when that person had taken their both of their fates into his own, electrifying hands.

"True, your family is dead," she said unsympathetically, "But it's not just people that tie us to the physical world. It's emotions as well. Love, jealousy, _rage_…"

There it was. Noatak was certain. He could not let go of the rage he felt towards his father, and it was holding him here. Even in death, his father was dictating his life. He wanted to be free of him, but simultaneously could not find the strength to let go of all the feelings that had built up inside of him over the years. All of the things left unsaid, every tiny resentment tied him to the mortal world like a hundred tiny hooks imbedded in the skin of a much stronger fish. And if he could not cut the line, he would be trapped here forever.

"And how do I let go of my…_rage_?" he asked, trying to remain calm. He disliked his current disadvantage; resented the fact that she possessed knowledge that was a mystery to him.

Of course, she was well aware of her advantage, and was keen to milk it for all that it was worth. "You have to answer a series of questions. Each one you answer will bring you closer to confronting that which holds you to the physical world. Answer fully and honestly, and you'll find your place in the spirit world easily. Try to skirt the issue, and we'll be trapped here for a very long time."

Noatak's eyes snapped up immediately, a victorious grin of his own lighting up his features. The princess had just made a mistake without even realizing it. A mistake, just as well, that leveled the playing field once more. Noatak allowed himself to laugh heartily for the first time since his death. He was even more pleased when he saw the princess's composed features descend into fury.

He could tell that she was frustrated beyond all reasonable doubt, unable to find the source of his sudden joy. "Why are you laughing?!" she demanded.

Noatak wiped false tears from his eyes, deliberately stalling and allowing her anxiety to build. "You needn't be so concerned, Princess. I'll answer your questions. And _you _will answer _mine_."

She laughed back at him, as he expected she would. "You are a fool if you think I would agree to that."

"Oh, you don't have a choice. You said yourself: if I don't answer your questions, we'll_ both_ be here for a very long time." He watched with satisfaction as realization dawned on her face.

So long as he was trapped here, she was trapped with him. And he would only answer her questions if she answered his in turn. She had begun the battle for control, thinking herself prepared. But in her confidence, she had let her opponent in on the one weakness that he could exploit.

He was content to let them both rot in the icy tundra for the sake of maintaining control of this very slippery game. It was the only card he had left to play, and Noatak was not fond of losing. And he was willing to bet that she was not either. She would still play, even if it was not under her own terms. He could see the decision solidifying in her eyes. They had found quite an even opponent in one another, and neither would give in until the game was complete. She sat opposite him, surely armoring her mind for the battle at hand. Her eyes burned brighter than ever before, glad, perhaps, to finally have challenger.

"Shall we begin?"


End file.
